blog

In some of my posts, and in my book, I adopt a light humorous tone. I do it in order to increase the receptivity of us “first worlders” — in particular my core audience of fellow “Woodstock Boomers” — to the project of radically curtailing our consumption, voluntarily.

I talk about “prepper home ec”; “doomer style files”; being a “doomer boomer”; hosting the “Zombie Apocalypse watch party.”

Humor can be very helpful. But too much of it can backfire. I recommend carefully curating one’s intake of humorous material, fun creative “deep-green lifestyle” content, and scary news. Adjust on the fly according to your ability and willingness to confront the situation.

I also recommend regularly just walking outside (to the degree that you feel safe doing so) and being in your body, and checking in with how you’re feeling both physically and emotionally.

If you don’t feel safe walking outside in the public space, create a little nook in your indoor space. Ideally with some connection to outdoors, even if it’s just some rays of sunshine, moonlight, a bit of sky. If you are able to open a window, all the better. Even in very dense urban areas, nature makes herself known. Tune in to birdsong, the sound of wind, the music of rain.

The fact is, things are really serious. It’s not funny at all what a lot of people around the world are experiencing. Particularly in less-developed countries. The countries where the people have made little or no contribution to climate change, but are suffering the worst of its effects.

As David Gelles reported in the New York Times “Climate Forward” email newsletter yesterday:

“This week, the heat index in Rio de Janeiro reached 144 degrees Fahrenheit, or 62 Celsius, the highest ever measured in the city. The national government issued health warnings because of extreme heat in multiple cities.

“In South Sudan, temperatures were forecast to reach 113 degrees Fahrenheit, far above the 90-degree highs typical of the dry season from December to March, as my colleague Abdi Latif Dahir reported.

“In Bengaluru, India, water supplies are running low, and last month Ghana and Nigeria issued heat warnings to the public.

“We don’t yet know whether all these events were caused or worsened by climate change. But we do know that human-caused global warming was behind many of the extreme heat events that helped make last year the hottest on record. A recent study also concluded that climate change made the extreme heat West Africa experienced in February 10 times as likely …”

Voluntarily curtailing one’s consumption is not easy at times. Particularly if you live in a place where you pretty much have access to everything money can buy, as we do here in the USA. It takes self-discipline, and it takes a powerful “WHY.” Reading about the seriousness of the situation is a good way to remind ourselves of why we are embarking on this path of radical reduction.

They’re baaaaaaack!! Cat Food “CAN”-dles.
One of my friends in the neighborhood likes to feed a couple of stray cats, and the cat food tins are a good size and shape for candles.

It’s a fun size, and it helps address the issue about recycling. A lot of material doesn’t necessarily get recycled, although cans probably get recycled more than plastic does. It’s always preferable, if one is not able to avoid acquiring disposable containers in the first place, to reuse them.

And In a manner of speaking, one might consider this actually an UP-cycle, since the empty cans can be used over and over again for candles.

To make the candles, I just take bits and pieces of old candles that are burned down, the wicks are trashed so the candles won’t burn anymore etc. and I melt the wax in the solar oven.

I make wicks out of thin strips of old T-shirt material. It’s been working pretty well.

See pics here on my deep green Facebook page.

#PrepperHomeEc #DoomerStyleFiles

Several fellow activists and I have set out to research what our city governments have in place, as far as plans for ensuring availability of 72 hours of potable water for every citizen after a disaster.

So far, we have not been able to find confirmation that any of our local governments has such a plan in place.

A person can only survive without water for 72 hours or less. So it’s important to ensure that there is not disruption in the drinking-water supply. In the wake of a disaster, it very well may not be feasible to bring water in from outside.

Every household can and should have a backup plan in place, but not everyone has the means to do so, at least not easily. In my preferred ways are to keep on hand several days’ worth of drinkable rainwater (in barrels, outside the house), plus several days’ worth of drinkable tapwater (in jugs, inside the house), for each household member. It’s really pretty easy, and doesn’t take up that much space.

On a related note, I recently read that in Tokyo (a city where I lived for five years back in the 90s, and really learned a lot), the municipal govt has set up “disaster parks” in various districts. Residents of each district can gather in the event of disaster and get potable water (stored in underground tanks), cook, charge their phones etc.

The park benches convert into cooking surfaces.

At times of non-disaster, it’s just a pleasant park where people can spend time.

A key component, in my opinion, is that these parks are on a district scale. Not hyper-centralized. It fosters a “district consciousness,” which is very helpful in building the human connection and sense of responsibility/ownership, without which “hard infrastructure” can only go so far.

Here’s the article: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/tokyo-refuge-parks-survive-earthquakes-fires

“In Tokyo’s “Disaster Parks” Residents Play on Good Days and Cheat Death on Bad Ones

“The parks have buried food, solar chargers and benches that turn into cook stoves.”

CAMERON ALLAN MCKEAN | RESILIENT CITIES   AUGUST 14, 2014

(From NextCity, one of my favorite sources of inspiration for building anti-fragility into our communities.)

Oh no! I left the solar oven running by mistake! And now …

… Just kidding. And now, absolutely nothing is wrong!

1) Solar oven doesn’t “run”; It’s not plugged in, it’s just ON when you open up the reflectors and position the box to the sun angle.

2) The solar oven cannot catch fire. The temperatures are not high enough to cause combustion, only high enough to slow-cook food.

3) Furthermore, the solar oven is used outdoors. So it doesn’t even heat up the kitchen if you leave it “on” by mistake.

4) The worst thing that’s ever happened when I left the solar oven “on” by mistake, is that nighttime came, and people walking by were confused. They were wondering if I was cooking by the rays of the moon etc. and I had to disappoint them. Nope, it’s just a solar oven, not a lunar oven. But that’s good enough, because there’s plenty of free solar energy available during the daytime! Even in northern latitudes in winter, people can usually use a solar oven for at least a couple hours a day.

PS. There are solar cooking devices that can cause combustion, and cannot be left unattended. If you’re curious, petition the google deities to check out solar parabola, parabolic cooker, etc. Those are great too, but you can’t leave them unattended. Also, with some models, you might have to wear Kevlar mitts!

#UrbanPrepperHomeEc #ZombieApocalypseWatchParty #DoomerBoomer

See this post with photo here on my Facebook page.

(From Afros and Allergies, a content creator I follow on Facebook and highly recommend): “This is the liquid left over from steeping some apples and blackberries in vanilla, sugar, arrowroot powder (like corn starch) and cinnamon for my dessert. It’s kinda syrupy now. Any ideas for how to use it?”

Ooooooh tasty!! 

I often use these kinds of leftover cooking liquids as a mixer for cocktails. Or just dilute it with water or tea or soda, and it’s like a homemade soft drink.

Or, sometimes I pour the liquid around my fruit trees. I figure it helps supply them with extra nutrients.

Little things like this may seem small, and a lot of people would just throw it down the drain without another thought, but they are missing a super treat and passing up what is basically a form of free money!

Visit the comment section of her original post to see some super excellent tips from other people!

#thrift #creativity

PS. Also:

• The juice left over from cooking vegetables is a resource too! All on its own, without having to add anything else, it is a nice nutritious drink, and often it’s very alkaline which is a lot of us are finding is helpful for our health. That veggie-water can also supply nutrients to the garden. Of course, let it cool down before pouring it on the soil around your trees or other plant babies!

• In permaculture design, everything is a resource. Nature doesn’t make trash! What may seem like a waste product is a resource that someone or something else wants or needs. And usually it turns out to our own benefit as well! Money in the bank, as I am fond of pointing out! Not all money is green, made of paper, or issued by a central government. <wink>

“Millennials have ditched top sheets, much to the dismay of older generations.” (Accompanied by a photo of a dismayed-looking woman in bed, clutching a top sheet around her shoulders.)

I am so thoroughly confused by posts like this. <laugh emoji> I am a boomer but cannot relate to uptight social norms, excess laundry, or consumerist pearl-clutching.

That said, I personally use a sheet because it allows me to not have to wash the comforter or quilt all the time. So basically I am very lazy, slacking off for mother earth.

Also I live in Florida and use no air conditioning, so a sheet is the only covering I want in summer. And it’s versatile, sometimes I only want it covering my feet — which is perfectly easy to arrange.

A sheet can so quickly and easily be washed/rinsed in a small tub or pot, and then hung on the line to dry.

It doesn’t even have to be washed in water necessarily, sometimes I just hang it up on the line in the morning, and let the sun and wind give it a burst of free cleaning power.

That said, I have no judgment about entire generations deciding to try something new lol.

Generational pearl-clutching seems to have become the new sport of my fellow Boomers with too much time (and money) on their hands.

Maybe a sign that it’s time to find some more hobbies, or get busy planting fruit trees! And definitely we can be watching and learning from the younger generations. There’s a reason why different approaches get popular.

From an article in Wired magazine online, “The Global Danger of Boring Buildings“:

“Unloved buildings turn to ruin, leading to a deluge of construction waste worldwide. Designer Thomas Heatherwick tells WIRED why cities need to prioritize human health and joy in architecture. … Buildings need to mean something to people, or they won’t be sustained, they’ll be more likely to be demolished. And in our environmental crisis, the demolition industry is society’s giant dirty secret.”

Synchronicity: Recently I happened to stumble on a series of police novels that I fell in love with. The books are set in Venice, Italy. The main character is a police officer named Commissario Brunetti. (The author of the series is Donna Leon.) Brunetti and the other characters are extremely engaging.

Another thing I really love besides the lovable and admirable characters is the setting itself, Venice. On that ancient island-city, people walk everywhere. (There are no motor vehicles on the island.) And the characters are often shown taking time to admire the beauty of their place — the buildings, the boats, the water — even though most of the characters are Venetian-born and -raised, they never go numb to the beauty of their home. Even when they are in a hurry to get to an appointment, they always have at least a moment to take nourishment from the loveliness of their built environment.

My parents took several trips to Italy, and it was one of their favorite places to go together. One of the things they liked was that the culture seems to have a devout insistence on beauty. Seemingly quite the opposite of the USA, where we seem to have declared beauty optional and impractical.

Interestingly, in the process of putting “practicality” before beauty, we in the USA have ended up creating a lot of impractical buildings and other impractical features in our built environment. It is financially and ecologically unsustainable, particularly as hurricanes and other natural disasters mount in frequency andcseverity. Something to ponder!

Regarding buildings, though, there is a caveat nowadays. With the increasing severity and frequency of storms and other disasters, we might want to encourage more food trucks and other mobile businesses; and portable homes (tiny homes on wheels, etc.). All of which can be very beautiful and lovable too.

#waste #sustainablecities #construction